{"id":20941,"date":"2022-02-02T09:59:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20941"},"modified":"2022-02-02T10:04:28","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T15:04:28","slug":"20941","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20941","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h8hHVdhRaoE\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Can We Be &#8220;Friends&#8221; with God?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author and scholar Diana Butler Bass describes friendship with Jesus as something that\u2014contrary to some popular opinion\u2014is the mark of a mature faith. Friendship with God is at the heart of the biblical story:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bible tells a different story about friendship with God, especially in the Hebrew scriptures. Friendship is anything but immaturity; it is a gift of wisdom: \u201cIn every generation [wisdom] passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets\u201d (Wisdom of Solomon 7:27). Two of Israel\u2019s greatest heroes, Abraham, the father of faith, and Moses, the liberating prophet, are specifically called friends of God. In Isaiah 41:8, God refers to Abraham as \u201cmy friend,\u201d a tradition that carries into the New Testament (James 2:23). Of Moses, Exodus says: \u201cThe Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend\u201d (33:11), a very rare intimacy, for such close proximity to the divine usually meant death (33:20). . . .&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The point is that friendship with God establishes the covenant\u2014and that Israel is freed from bondage into a new family forged by friendship through the law given by Moses. Friendship with God is not a biblical side story; rather, it is central to the promises and faithfulness of being a called people, in which all are friends, companions, intimates, siblings, and beloved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early Christians, most of whom were Jews, knew all of this and extended the idea of divine friendship to Jesus. The New Testament vividly recounts the closeness of Jesus\u2019s circle of friends, women and men transformed through their relationship with him. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Butler Bass understands the \u201cOur Father\u201d prayer of Jesus to be ultimately about our mutual friendship with God:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, Jesus instructed his friends to pray to \u201cAbba\u201d (as we can assume he himself prayed), a term most often rendered as \u201cFather\u201d in English, but one that contains shades of meaning denoting intimacy and familiarity, including that of fraternal relations like \u201cbrother\u201d or \u201ccompanion,\u201d and is related to the Hebrew word for \u201cfriend\u201d (ahab), used to describe Abraham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, Jesus introduces his friends (the disciples) to his other friend (God) in the daily prayer known as the \u201cOur Father,\u201d perhaps the spirit of which is better captured by \u201cOur Father-Friend\u201d or just \u201cOur Friend.\u201d This idea of \u201cOur Friend in heaven\u201d was a revolutionary one, as Jesus, acting as a mediator of divine companionship, collapsed the sacred distance between God and us. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Friendship is contingent on love\u2014real love: compassion, empathy, reaching out, going beyond what we imagine is possible. That is the command: love. And if we reach out in love, friendship is the result, even friendship with God. Friendship is mutual, a hand extended and another reaching back. . . . Friendship is an eternal circle, the ceaseless reaching toward one another that strengthens us and gives us joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Diana Butler Bass,\u00a0<em>Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence<\/em>\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2021), 3\u20134, 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"307\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image-1-500x307.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20943\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image-1-500x307.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image-1-300x184.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image-1-768x471.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/image-1.png 1888w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can We Be &#8220;Friends&#8221; with God? Author and scholar Diana Butler Bass describes friendship with Jesus as something that\u2014contrary to some popular opinion\u2014is the mark of a mature faith. Friendship with God is at the heart of the biblical story: The Bible tells a different story about friendship with God, especially in the Hebrew scriptures. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20945,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941\/revisions\/20945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}